AUSTRALIA
Foreign interns restricted
Foreigners have been banned from working as interns for members of parliament, a Senate spokesman said yesterday, in a reform apparently aimed at blocking Chinese prying. The program placing young people in a much-prized position working for a federal legislator for three months had been open to all nationalities, as long as the applicant did not have a criminal record. The spokesman declined to comment on what prompted the alteration. The Financial Times in September last year reported that a New Zealand citizen who had previously interned at an Australian parliamentary committee had links to a Chinese military spy school, prompting a review of the intern system, which concluded that standards should be bought in line with the rest of the government. Chinese students had often applied to the program and many worked as interns over the years.
AUSTRALIA
PNG, Solomons ink deal
Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands on Wednesday signed onto a joint undersea Internet cable project, funded mostly by Australia, that forestalls plans by Chinese telecom Huawei Technologies to lay the links itself. Australia is to pay two-thirds of the project cost of A$136.6 million (US$100.9 million) under the deal, signed on a visit to Brisbane by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Rick Houenipwela and PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill. “We spend billions of dollars a year on foreign aid and this is a very practical way of investing in the future economic growth of our neighbors in the Pacific,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters. The project, for which Australian telecom Vocus Group is building the cable, is to link the two nations to the Australian mainland, besides connecting the Solomons capital Honiara with the archipelago’s outer islands.
CHINA
MeToo fells professor
Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou has suspended a prominent primatologist in a victory for the nation’s slow-building #MeToo movement. The university yesterday announced that it would suspend Zhang Peng (張鵬) and revoke his honorary titles after confirming two complaints from female students. It did not disclose the allegations, but said it had “zero tolerance” for teacher misconduct and would safeguard students’ legal rights. Zhang held visiting positions at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Kyoto, and had been inducted into the Chang Jiang national fellowship program. The #MeToo discussion has drawn in Chinese state media, including the People’s Daily, which urged schools to listen to “young people’s voices” and address complaints without being evasive.
UNITED STATES
Python found in hard drive
A passenger with a python hidden inside an external hard drive was stopped from boarding a Florida plane headed to Barbados. The Miami Herald on Sunday reported that officers screening luggage at Miami International Airport found an “organic mass” inside a checked bag. A bomb expert then examined the bag and discovered the live snake in the hard drive, Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said, adding that the snake was “obviously not an imminent terrorist threat,” but its interception prevented a possible wildlife threat. The passenger was fined and the snake was taken into custody by Fish and Wildlife Services.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly